“From this superficial glance at the character of the house in the outlying Islands of the Japanese Empire, as well as at the houses of the neighboring countries, Korea and China, I think it will be conceded that the Japanese house is typically a product of the people, with just those features from abroad incorporated in it that one might look for, considering the proximity to Japan of China and Korea. When we remember that these three great civilizations of the Mongoloid race approximate within the radius of a few hundred miles, and that they have been in more or less intimate contact since early historic times, we cannot wonder that the germs of Japanese art and letters should have been adopted from the continent. In precisely the same way our ancestors, the English, drew from their continent the material for their language, art, music, architecture, and many other important factors in their civilization; and if history speaks truly, their refinement even in language and etiquette was imported. But while Japan, like England, has modified and developed the germs ingrafted from a greater and older civilization, it has ever preserved the elasticity of youth, and seized upon the good things of our civilization, – such as steam electricity, and modern methods of study and research, -and utilized them promptly. Far different is it from the mother country, where the improvements and methods of other nations get but tardy recognition.
It seems to give certain English writers peculiar delight to stigmatize the Japanese as a nation of imitators and copyists. From the contemptuous manner in which disparagements of this nature are flung into the faces of the Japanese who are engaged in their heroic work of establishing sound methods of government and education, one would think that in England had originated the characters by which the English people write, the paper upon which they print, the figures by which they reckon, the compass by which they navigate, the gunpowder by which they subjugate, the religion with which they worship. Indeed, when one looks over the long list of countries upon which England has drawn for the arts of music, painting, sculpture, architecture, printing, engraving, and a host of other things, it certainly comes with an ill-grace from natives of that country to taunt the Japanese with being imitators.
It would be obviously absurd to suggest as a model for our own houses such a structure as a Japanese house. Leaving out the fact that it is not adapted to the rigor of our climate or to the habits of our people, its fragile and delicate fittings if adopted by us, would be reduced to a mass of kindlings in a week, by the rude knocks it would receive; and as for exposing on our public thoroughfares the delicate labyrinth of carvings often seen on panel and post in Japan, the wide-spread vandalism of our country would render futile all such attempts to civilize and refine. Fortunately, in that land which we had in our former ignorance and prejudice regarded as uncivilized, the malevolent form of the genus homo called ‘vandal’ is unkown.
Believing that the Japanese show infinitely greater refinement in their methods of house-adornment than we do, and convinced that their tastes are normally artistic, I have endeavored to emphasize my convictions by holding up in contrast our usual methods of house-furnishing and outside embellishments. By so doing I do not mean to imply that we do not have in America interiors that show the most perfect refinement and taste; or that in Japan, on the other hand, interiors may not be found in which good taste is wanting.
“I do not expect to do much good in thus pointing out what I believe to be better methods, resting on more refined standards. There are some, I am sure, who will approve; but the throng – who are won by tawdry glint and tinsel; who make possible; by admiration and purchase, the horrors of much that is made for house-furnishings and adornment – will, with characteristic obtuseness, call all else but themselves and their own ways heathen and barbarous.”
Morse, Edward S. ”Concluding Remarks.” Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings.
Note: Edward S. Morse (1838 – 1925): mechanical draftsman, wood engraver: zoologist, ethnologist, archeologist, author, inventor, recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun (issued by the Emperor of Japan), Director of the Peabody Museum (1880 – 1914): Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings is an informative read on classical Japanese architecture and landscape design- not to mention its value as a repository of intricate diagrams and aesthetic depictions crafted from an idyllic place, culture and era of history.
